Chapter 228

James stepped closer to Victoria, the sharp blade reflecting the faint light from the broken windows. The metal looked cold and cruel in his steady hand.

“No,” Camille whispered, her voice barely audible. “Please, no.”

Victoria closed her eyes, bracing herself. She’d faced countless challenges—losing her husband, building her business from nothing, battling enemies. Yet, nothing had prepared her for this.

The first touch of the blade against her arm made her gasp. It was a light pressure, not cutting, just letting her feel its deadly sharpness.

“My father spent his last years in a small, dark cell,” James said quietly. “He wrote to me about how the other prisoners would threaten him, how the guards would look the other way when someone wanted to hurt him.”

The blade pressed harder against Victoria’s skin. She bit her lip to stifle a cry.

“Stop it!” Camille shouted, straining against the zip ties until blood surfaced on her wrists. “He’s gone, James! Your father is gone! Hurting her won’t bring him back!”

James completely ignored Camille. His focus was entirely on Victoria, watching fear and pain meld on her face.

“Do you know what it feels like to be helpless?” he asked Victoria. “To know that no one is coming to save you?”

The blade moved across her arm, leaving a thin red line. Victoria couldn't hold back her scream this time. The sound echoed off the concrete walls, making it seem louder and more desperate.

“Victoria!” Camille’s voice broke as she saw blood on her mother’s arm. “Please, James, I’m begging you. Take me instead. Do whatever you want to me, but leave her alone.”

“Take you instead?” James turned to Camille, his expression cold and empty. “You don’t understand. This isn’t about choosing one of you over the other. This is about making both of you suffer the way my family suffered.”

He turned back to Victoria and made another cut, deeper this time. Victoria’s entire body shook with pain, but she tried not to give him the satisfaction of screaming again.

“Tell me,” James said, his voice soft but dangerous, “what would you do to save your daughter? What would you sacrifice?”

Victoria looked at Camille through her tears. Her daughter was pulling so hard against the zip ties that the plastic was cutting into her skin, leaving bloody marks on her wrists.

“Anything,” Victoria whispered. “I would do anything.”

“Even confess to crimes you didn’t commit?”

“Yes.”

“Even destroy your own business?”

“Yes.”

“Even die?”

Victoria didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

James smiled, but it was a grim, satisfied expression—the smile of someone who had gotten exactly the answer he expected.

“My father would have said the same thing about me,” he said. “But when the time came to choose between his family and his business, he chose wrong.”

The blade moved to Victoria’s other arm. This time, the cut was so deep that blood immediately streamed down to her fingers.

“Stop!” Camille screamed so loudly that her voice cracked. “You’re killing her!”

“Not yet,” James said calmly. “But I could. That’s the point. Right now, I have complete control over whether Victoria Kane lives or dies. Just like the justice system had complete control over my father.”

Victoria felt dizzy from the pain and blood loss. The warehouse seemed to spin around her, and James’s voice sounded distant.

“James,” she said weakly, “if you’re going to kill me, just do it. Don’t torture me in front of my daughter.”

“But that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” James replied. “Because that’s what you did to my father. You tortured him by taking away everything he cared about while his family watched.”

He made another cut, this one across Victoria’s shoulder. The pain was so intense that she couldn’t breathe for a moment. Camille was openly weeping now, tears streaming down her face as she watched her mother being hurt. “Please,” she begged. “Please, I’ll give you anything you want. Money, information, whatever you need. Just stop hurting her.”

“What I want,” James said, “is for you to understand that power means nothing when someone else holds the knife.”

He moved the blade to Victoria’s neck, not cutting yet, just letting her feel the cold metal against her skin.

“One quick cut here, and it’s over,” he said. “All of Victoria Kane’s success, all of her wealth, all of her influence—gone in seconds.”

“Don’t,” Camille whispered. “Please don’t.”

Victoria could feel her heartbeat against the blade. Each pulse pushed her skin slightly against the sharp edge.

“I’m not afraid,” she said, looking directly at James. “If you’re going to do it, then do it. But let Camille go first. She never hurt your father. She wasn't my child when all of this happened.”

“She’s your child now,” James said. “She’s part of your empire. She benefits from what you built on my father’s grave.”

“She’s innocent.”

“No one in your family is innocent.”

James pressed the blade a little harder against Victoria’s throat. A tiny drop of blood appeared where the metal touched her skin.

“Last words?” he asked.

Victoria looked at Camille, memorizing her face. “I love you,” she said. “You gave my life meaning when I thought I had lost everything. You made me a mother when I thought I would never be one. Whatever happens to me, you keep living. You keep being strong.”

“No,” Camille said, shaking her head. “No, don’t talk like that. We’re both getting out of here. We’re both going home.”

“I don’t think so,” James said.

Victoria could feel the blade getting closer to her skin. Her whole body shook with fear and pain from the cuts James had already made.

“Please,” she whispered. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it quickly.”

James pulled the knife back slightly, studying her face. “Kill you?” He let out a harsh laugh. “Death would be too kind, Mrs. Kane. Death would end your suffering, and I’m not ready for that yet.”

“What do you mean?” Victoria asked, though she was afraid to hear the answer.

“I mean that tonight was just the beginning,” James said, wiping the blood from the blade with a cloth. “Tonight was just to show you how helpless you really are. Tomorrow, we’ll continue where we left off.”

Camille felt her heart sink. “Tomorrow?”

“Oh yes,” James said, looking at both women with cold satisfaction. “I have so much more planned for both of you. Tonight was about pain. Tomorrow will be about breaking your spirits completely.”

He walked back to the table and carefully placed the knife next to the other instruments. Victoria could see many more tools there—things she didn’t want to think about.

“You see, killing you would only take a few minutes,” James continued, his voice calm and matter-of-fact. “But destroying you completely—that takes time. That takes patience.”

“James, please,” Camille begged. “We understand that you’re angry. We understand that you want revenge. But this won’t bring your father back.”

“No, it won’t,” James agreed. “But it will make sure that his death wasn’t meaningless. It will make sure that the people who destroyed him pay the price.”

He began packing up his laptop and folding his chair. “I have to go now. I have preparations to make for tomorrow’s session.”

“Session?” Victoria asked weakly.

“That’s what I’m calling our little meetings,” James said with a smile that sent chills down both women’s spines. “Tonight was Session One. Tomorrow will be Session Two. And if you’re very unlucky, there might be a Session Three as well.”

Victoria tried to think of something to say that might change his mind, but the pain from her cuts made it hard to focus. Blood was still dripping from her arms, and she felt dizzy.

“The beauty of this place,” James said, looking around the empty warehouse, “is that no one will hear you scream. No one will find you here. I could keep you both for weeks if I wanted to.”

“People will look for us,” Camille said desperately.

“Will they? Your phones are destroyed. Your car is at the bottom of a lake. As far as anyone knows, you simply disappeared.” James picked up his laptop case. “By the time anyone thinks to search for you, this will all be over.”

He started walking toward the door, then paused and turned back.

“Oh, and don’t bother trying to escape,” he said casually. “The zip ties are industrial strength, and this building is locked from the outside. Even if you managed to get free, you wouldn’t get far.”

Victoria watched him preparing to leave, panic rising in her chest. “James, wait!”

“What?”

“What do you want from us? Really? There has to be something we can give you that would end this.”

James considered her question for a long moment. “What I want, Mrs. Kane, is for you to suffer the way my father suffered. I want you to spend tonight thinking about what’s coming tomorrow. I want you to feel the same hopelessness he felt in that prison cell.”

“And then what? After we’ve suffered enough, will you let us go?”

“Let you go?” James shook his head. “Mrs. Kane, I think you’re still not understanding the situation. This doesn’t end with you going home. This ends when I decide it ends.”

Camille felt tears running down her face as she realized the true horror of their situation. James wasn’t planning to eventually release them. He was planning to torture them until they died.

“My father spent three years in prison,” James continued. “Three years of daily torment before his heart finally gave out. I think that’s a fair timeline for what’s going to happen to both of you.”

“Three years?” Victoria whispered.

“Give or take. It depends on how strong you are. Some people break faster than others.” James adjusted his laptop case on his shoulder. “I guess we’ll find out what you’re made of.”

He walked to the door and put his hand on the handle. “Get some rest, ladies. Tomorrow is going to be a very long day.”

“James!” Camille called out desperately. “Please don’t leave us here! Please!”

But James didn’t look back. He opened the heavy metal door and stepped through it. The sound of multiple locks clicking into place echoed through the warehouse, followed by his footsteps getting fainter and fainter until they disappeared completely.

Victoria and Camille were left alone in the darkness, bleeding and terrified, knowing that this was only the beginning of their nightmare.

The warehouse fell silent except for the steady drip of water somewhere in the shadows and their own ragged breathing. Both women knew that somewhere out there, James was planning tomorrow’s torture session.

And there was nothing they could do to stop him.